A popular and promising young mountaineer fell to his death on Yosemite’s El Capitan on Wednesday, a tragedy that was reportedly live-streamed on social media.
Balin Miller, 23, from Anchorage Alaska, had already reached the top of the 3,000-foot granite wall — among the most famous and challenging rock climbs in the world — when a gear bag he was hauling behind him got stuck, according to a Facebook post by well-known Yosemite photographer Tom Evans, who said he witnessed the accident.
So Miller, still attached to his rope, went back down to fix the problem, Evans said. “His rope didn’t reach the bag’s location by many feet, but he seemed unaware of that fact,” Evans wrote. “On the way down he rappelled off the end of the rope.”
Rappelling off the end of a rope is a distressingly common and often deadly mistake — one that can be prevented by tying a stopper knot at the end of the rope. That’s a step climbers sometimes forgo in the name of efficiency, because the knot, itself, can get snagged in a tree or jammed in a crack, leading to more work and slowing them down.
Yosemite National Park officials — some of whom are on furlough due to the government shutdown — did not respond to an email requesting comment or issue any statements confirming the accident or its cause.
Witnesses said park rangers, many of whom are exempt from the furloughs, arrived at the scene shortly after the accident.
Miller’s mom, Jeanine Girard-Moorman, confirmed her son’s death via social media on Wednesday. “It is with a heavy heart I have to tell you my incredible son died during a climbing accident today,” she wrote, adding that her heart was shattered “in a million pieces.”
Miller wasn’t exactly a household name in the climbing world, like Alex Honnold, star of the Academy Award winning documentary Free Solo, but his exploits were impressive enough to catch the eye of other climbers and mountain enthusiasts.
He had completed impressive routes in Patagonia and the Sierra Nevada, but he propelled himself into the ranks of elite climbers with a June ascent of the demanding South Face of Denali, North America’s highest summit.
His route, known as the “Slovak Direct” because it was first climbed by three Slovaks in 1984 and goes almost straight up the mountain, is considered one of the most challenging in the Western hemisphere. It requires more than 9,000 ft of extremely technical ice climbing, often in brutal weather, and had only been successfully climbed by about 20 people before Miller pulled it off solo.
On Wednesday, Miller was climbing a route called Sea of Dreams on El Capitan. It’s challenging, but if the rock was dry and the weather was mild, it was probably within his comfort zone.
El Capitan not only attracts climbers from around the world, it’s also a destination for photographers, videographers and aspiring social media influencers. It is among the most photographed rock formations in the world.
In an eerie sign of the times, several Reddit users claimed to have watched Miller fall on a TikTok live-stream.
Others said he was well-aware of the risks.
“More than once we discussed the dangers of his craft and the likelihood that his career would end in a tragic way,” wrote a poster on Reddit who claimed to have been friends with Miller since middle-school. “Nevertheless, we both understood that what made his life meaningful…was climbing.”
